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Civil rights era · 1945–1975
- 1960s
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Eunice Milton serves as president of the campus YWCA
The Daily Tar Heel called Milton the YWCA president when it reported the filing of the Speaker Ban suit on April 1, 1966, and the former YWCA president when it reported on the case in May.
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John E. Greenbacker Jr. leads the Dialectic and Philanthropic literary society
The federal court's findings in Dickson v. Sitterson list Greenbacker as president of the Dialectic and Philanthropic Literary Society, one of the recognized student organizations whose officers brought the Speaker Ban suit. The Daily Tar Heel likewise named him as Di-Phi president among the ten student leaders who wrote to Chancellor Sitterson on March 1, 1966.
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Stuart Matthews serves on the steering committee of the UNC chapter of Students for a Democratic Society
The federal court's findings in Dickson v. Sitterson list Matthews as a member of the steering committee of Students for a Democratic Society, one of the recognized campus organizations whose officers brought the suit. The Daily Tar Heel adds that Matthews and Gary Waller invited Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker to speak under SDS sponsorship on January 3, 1966.
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Wall speeches at the campus line
In 1966 the trustees barred Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker from the campus under the Speaker Ban law, so each spoke to students across the stone wall at McCorkle Place from the Franklin Street sidewalk. Students and the two speakers sued in Dickson v. Sitterson, a federal court struck the law down in 1968, and a marker went up at the wall in 2011.
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Dickson, Nicholson and McCrary invite Herbert Aptheker to speak on campus
Three of the students who later sued invited Aptheker to speak at Chapel Hill on March 9, 1966 under the sponsorship of Student Government, the Carolina Forum and the Daily Tar Heel. Aptheker accepted two days later.
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Gary Waller joins a student panel on the Speaker Ban in Memorial Hall
The Daily Tar Heel reported that student body president Paul Dickson presided over a noon meeting of students and faculty in Memorial Hall, with a panel of four that included Waller, Carolina Conservative Club president Wilson Clark and the SDS faculty advisers Joseph Straley and Lewis Lipsitz. The meeting adopted a resolution about four and a half hours before the trustees' executive committee voted 8 to 3 to bar Herbert Aptheker from speaking.
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J. Carlyle Sitterson serves as chief administrator of UNC at Chapel Hill
Sitterson was the chief administrative officer of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from February 16, 1966 to January 31, 1972. His records as chancellor cover desegregation and the federal HEW lawsuit, the Speaker Ban law, protest against the Vietnam War and campus unrest.
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Stuart Matthews and Gary Waller write to Chancellor Sitterson inviting Herbert Aptheker
On the day the full board of trustees adopted new speaker regulations, Matthews and Waller wrote to Acting Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson for the UNC Chapel Hill chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, asking that Herbert Aptheker be allowed to speak on campus about the war in Vietnam on March 9. The letter set out his publications, speaking engagements and his Supreme Court passport case.
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The UNC Board of Trustees adopts visiting-speaker procedures under the amended Speaker Ban
Acting under G.S. 116-199 and 116-200, the full Board of Trustees adopted procedures requiring recognized student groups to clear invitations to covered speakers with the chancellor. The students complied with them when they renewed the Wilkinson and Aptheker invitations, and the court later found the procedures as vague as the statute.
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Herbert Aptheker gives his evening talk at the Community Church
Kept off campus, Aptheker gave his evening talk to about 350 people at the interdenominational Community Church on Purefoy Road. Paul Dickson then announced a Free Speech Defense Fund to pay for a lawsuit.
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Gary Waller debates Wilson Clark at the first Di-Phi Senate debate
The Daily Tar Heel announced that Waller and Carolina Conservative Club president Wilson Clark would be the principal speakers at the inaugural debate of the Di-Phi Senate that evening in New West, on whether human rights should supersede property rights in a modern society.
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Students and the two speakers file Dickson v. Sitterson against the Speaker Ban
Minutes after Sitterson refused the students' request, Paul Dickson and eleven other student leaders, joined by Wilkinson and Aptheker as plaintiffs, sued Sitterson, President William C. Friday and the trustees in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Attorney McNeill Smith took the case without fee.
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Supreme Court hears Klopfer v. North Carolina
The Supreme Court heard arguments in Peter Klopfer’s speedy-trial case, arising from an Orange County trespass prosecution.
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A three-judge federal court hears arguments in Dickson v. Sitterson at Greensboro
Judges Clement F. Haynsworth, Edwin M. Stanley and Algernon L. Butler heard 45 minutes a side in the U.S. Middle District courtroom. McNeill Smith called the law vague, ambiguous, unconstitutional and void on its face; W. T. Joyner Sr. answered for the University that the 1965 amendment had abolished the original ban. The court then held the case under advisement for a year.
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The U.S. Supreme Court decided Klopfer v. North Carolina, the speedy-trial case that grew out of a Chapel Hill sit-in arrest
The Supreme Court applied the constitutional speedy-trial right to state prosecutions in Peter Klopfer’s case.
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The UNC law school dedicates an issue of the North Carolina Law Review to Albert Coates
When Coates gave up full-time teaching in 1967, the law school marked it by dedicating the November 1967 North Carolina Law Review to him. That year the North Carolina Bar Association also gave him its John J. Parker award, and Governor Dan K. Moore presented him the North Carolina Award.
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Central High students march and Orange County schools integrate
In 1968 Black students at Central High School in Hillsborough walked out and marched to protest a plan for phased desegregation. After Central's last class graduated that spring, its high school students moved to Orange High, ending the county's dual school system in 1968–69.
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UNC's new law school building is finished on South Road
A new building for the UNC School of Law was completed across South Road in 1968, part of the decade's boom of modernist construction along that street.
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A federal court struck down the Speaker Ban law in Dickson v. Sitterson
A three-judge federal court in Greensboro ruled North Carolina's Speaker Ban law unconstitutional because it was too vague. The suit had been filed in March 1966 by UNC student leaders and the two barred speakers, Frank Wilkinson and Herbert Aptheker, and UNC's leaders hoped the ruling ended the long controversy.
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Governor Moore recommends that the state and the trustees not appeal the Speaker Ban ruling
Three days after the decision, Governor Dan K. Moore said the state should not appeal the federal court's finding that the law was unconstitutionally vague and recommended that the trustees not appeal either, voicing his hope that they and the administration would keep the campuses from being exploited as outlets of discord and strife.
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The UNC trustees adopt six temporary speaker rules in place of the voided regulations
A week after the ruling the trustees approved, over Senator Tom White's plea to proceed calmly, six interim rules on the manner of a speaker's appearance (a senior faculty member presiding at the chancellor's request, public forums, balanced views, audience questions, sponsorship by recognized student groups), with the items the court had struck removed, pending further study by the executive committee on March 8.
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The trustees' executive committee asks Governor Moore to name a subcommittee on a permanent speaker policy
Meeting in Charlotte, the Board of Trustees' Executive Committee voted to ask the governor to appoint a subcommittee to study speaker regulations and recommend a permanent policy to the full board in May. Senator Tom White, who agreed with the state's decision not to appeal, said the board had resolved nothing; President Friday hoped the matter would be settled by May.
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Albert Coates speaks at the law school graduation after teaching his last class
Recovering from his stroke, Coates gave the law school's commencement address and told the graduates that they and he were leaving together, since he had taught his final class. It ended a law teaching career at Chapel Hill that began in 1923.
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Carrboro’s Black political firsts
Braxton Foushee became Carrboro’s first Black alderman in 1969 and Robert Drakeford its first Black mayor in 1977, followed by Richard Knight Jr. as town manager, Hilliard Caldwell and Joal Hall Broun on the board, and Walter Horton as police chief in 2013. Barbara Foushee was sworn in as the first Black woman mayor in 2023, and the town named the Drakeford Library Complex in 2024.
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Two union officials and a striking worker are arrested at Lenoir Hall; Chancellor Sitterson pledges to subsidize workers SAGA does not rehire
On the strike's 24th day two union officials and a striking worker were arrested at Lenoir Dining Hall in the morning. Later that day Chancellor J. Carlyle Sitterson said the University would subsidize any workers SAGA did not rehire, after efforts to revive negotiations had stalled on the rehiring question.
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Police charge pickets at Lenoir Hall; nine are arrested and four hurt
About 25 police charged a group of pickets and sympathizers at the north end of Lenoir Hall when they did not disperse. Nine people were arrested, including AFSCME official Gene Gore and graduate student John Wheeler, and four were treated at Memorial Hospital. The next day Mayor Howard Lee announced that town police were being withdrawn from the strike scene.
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Eight men charged during the cafeteria strike appear in Orange County District Court
Howard Fuller of Malcolm X Liberation University, two of its students, AFSCME official Gene Gore and four others charged with disorderly conduct, riot, failure to disperse or interfering with officers during the strike appeared before Judge D. M. McLellan, who continued the cases to January 7, 1970 at the defendants' request.
- 1970s
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Killing of James Cates
James Cates, a Black Chapel Hill man, was stabbed to death in the Pit at UNC in November 1970, and three Durham men were tried and acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971. Memorial marches followed, a remembrance coalition formed, the Justice Department opened a cold-case investigation in 2022, and UNC dedicated a memorial to him in the Pit that year.
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Durham motorcycle gang member charged with murder in the Cates stabbing
Durham County officers arrested Ronnie Broadwell, 28, a member of the Durham Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, at Watts Hospital early on the morning of the stabbing, and he was charged with murder and held without bond in the Orange County Jail. By November 24 four white men were in jail and a second man, Bryan King of Durham, faced an assault charge.
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James Cates is killed outside the UNC Student Union
James Lewis Cates Jr., 22, a Black Chapel Hill resident, was stabbed outside the UNC Student Union shortly before 2 a.m. during an all-night dance, in a clash with members of Durham's Storm Troopers motorcycle gang, and died at North Carolina Memorial Hospital. Three white men charged in his death were acquitted by an all-white jury in 1971.
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Black residents question the police handling of the Cates killing
Black residents met at the Roberson Street Center to discuss how police handled the stabbing, young Black residents of Chapel Hill and Carrboro asked the Justice Department to investigate the campus police, and a fund was started to hire extra counsel for the prosecution. Vice Chancellor Joseph Eagles and Assistant Chancellor Claiborne Jones began reviewing the campus police response.
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Three Durham men bound over to the grand jury in the Cates killing
At a preliminary hearing in Hillsborough, Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Nelson and William Johnson were bound over to the Orange County Grand Jury on murder charges and held without bond. Medical testimony indicated that immediate care could have prevented Cates's death.
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Joe Hackney serves as an assistant district attorney in Orange and Chatham counties
After clerking for Justice Frank Huskins of the state Supreme Court, Joe Hackney worked as an assistant district attorney in Orange and Chatham counties from 1971 to 1974.
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Chapel Hill's Board of Adjustment turns down a ten-pump gas station on West Franklin Street
The Board of Adjustment voted unanimously to deny Kenan Oil Company a special use permit to clear the site of an older service station and build a ten-pump self-service gas pavilion. The company sued, and in December 1971 Superior Court upheld the denial.
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Trial of three Storm Troopers for the death of James Cates opens
Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Paul Nelson and William Johnson went on trial in Orange County Superior Court in Hillsborough before Judge Thomas Cooper on second-degree murder charges, reduced from first degree. District Solicitor Herbert Pierce prosecuted, and prosecution witnesses placed the three defendants around Cates with weapons.
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All-white jury acquits three men in the killing of James Cates
A jury of 11 men and one woman, all white, found Ronnie Broadwell, Rufus Paul Nelson and William Johnson not guilty after about an hour and a half of deliberation. The defense called no witnesses.
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Charles E. Daye joins the UNC School of Law as its first Black tenure-track professor
Charles E. Daye, a Durham native, came to the UNC law faculty in 1972 from Covington & Burling as the school's first African American tenure-track professor. He taught torts, housing and community development and administrative advocacy, and advised the Black Law Students Association from 1972 until 2014.
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N. Ferebee Taylor serves as chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill
Nelson Ferebee Taylor was the chief administrative officer of the Chapel Hill campus for eight years. His office's records deal with desegregation, the federal Department of Health, Education, and Welfare lawsuit and consent decree, and campus development.
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New Hope Improvement Association sues to stop the Eubanks Road landfill
Opponents of the landfill formed the New Hope Improvement Association, which drew about 500 members, and filed a lawsuit in late September 1972. The suit was denied in early October.
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Joe Hackney and Bob Epting begin practicing law together in Chapel Hill
Joe Hackney began practicing law in Chapel Hill with Bob Epting in 1974, handling family law and civil litigation in the courts of Orange and surrounding counties.
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Orange County Rape Crisis Center is founded
The organization established local support and advocacy for survivors of sexual violence.
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A gasoline truck fire and explosion damage the Orange County jail
A fuel truck caught fire and exploded while at the county jail on Court Street, causing heavy damage to the building.
Recent decades · 1976–2026
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Judge Stanley Peele wins the Democratic primary for his district court seat
Incumbent district judge Stanley Peele of Chapel Hill won the primary with 13,390 votes to 5,445 for Chapel Hill attorney Charles Hodson and 2,171 for Gerid Cumby of Alamance.
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Court of Appeals lets OWASA survey Cane Creek land over owners' objections
Landowners including the estate of Nancy Armstrong had refused OWASA's surveyors access to the dam site. After a trial court ordered access on April 28, 1977, the N.C. Court of Appeals held that the authority could enter and survey before starting eminent domain proceedings.
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Chief District Judge Peele halts Carrboro fire-lane towing
In a class-action suit by four Carrboro residents, three of them UNC students, Chief District Court Judge Stanley Peele issued a temporary restraining order barring the town from enforcing its ordinance allowing cars to be towed from marked fire lanes on private property.
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Pauli Murray declines an honorary degree from UNC
Chancellor N. Ferebee Taylor wrote to Murray on February 10, 1978 offering her an honorary Doctor of Laws at the commencement of May 14, 1978. Murray declined, citing the University's dispute with the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare over dismantling segregation and her refusal to share the platform with Governor Jim Hunt.
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Plans are announced for a Chapel Hill branch of the Orange County court clerk's office
Clerk of Superior Court Frank Frederick and Chief District Court Judge Stanley Peele announced plans for a Chapel Hill branch of the clerk's office, to open in January and handle traffic tickets and other misdemeanors docketed for district court in Chapel Hill.
- 1980s
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Court of Appeals throws out the state's approval of the Cane Creek project
On appeal by the Cane Creek Conservation Authority, several landowners and Teer Farms, the N.C. Court of Appeals vacated the commission's certificate, which Wake County Superior Court had upheld on March 5, 1980. It held that the decision needed an environmental impact statement under the state Environmental Policy Act and a review of the whole record, and sent the case back to the commission.
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Opponents sue in federal court, arguing the dam permit has lapsed
The Cane Creek Conservation Authority filed suit in U.S. District Court claiming OWASA's Corps permit expired on August 31, 1982 because no fill had actually been placed at the site. OWASA said its preliminary work before the deadline kept the permit valid.
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State commission grants OWASA condemnation power for the third time
After a second hearing in late 1982, the Environmental Management Commission reissued OWASA's certificate in March 1983, a Wake County Superior Court judge sent it back, and on October 13 the commission reinstated OWASA's power of eminent domain. Mike Teer, by then president of the Cane Creek Conservation Authority, said the group would appeal.
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Federal court dismisses the opponents' permit suits for lack of standing
The U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina dismissed the two suits brought by the Cane Creek Conservation Authority and Teer Farms, finding they alleged only a general fear of environmental loss rather than a direct injury. The court noted that OWASA had so far acquired all its land through voluntary purchases.
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Court of Appeals upholds OWASA's right to condemn the Teer land
The N.C. Court of Appeals affirmed the commission's 1983 certificate against an appeal by the Cane Creek Conservation Authority and Teer Farms, ruling among other points that water quality was a proper factor. The Daily Tar Heel reported that the case turned on two parcels owned by dairy farmer Thomas Teer, the last two of the 50 parcels OWASA needed.
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Valerie Foushee works as an administrative officer for the Chapel Hill Police Department
Foushee spent 21 years as an administrative officer with the Chapel Hill Police Department, from 1987 to 2008.
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Eleanor Kinnaird is sworn in as mayor of Carrboro
Elizabeth R. Holland administered the oath of office to Mayor-elect Eleanor Kinnaird at the Board of Aldermen meeting of December 1, 1987. The board had approved the abstract of votes cast at the November 3, 1987 election earlier in the meeting, and outgoing mayor James V. Porto Jr. and departing aldermen Zona Norwood and John Boone made their parting remarks.
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Judge Peele rules in the Hanes Hall CIA protest cases
Judge Stanley Peele found anti-CIA protesters Dale McKinley and Graham Entwistle guilty of disorderly conduct for chaining themselves at Hanes Hall during CIA recruiting interviews and entered a prayer for judgment continued; later in 1988 he jailed McKinley for 21 days and gave Entwistle a suspended sentence for violating its terms.
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Eleanor Kinnaird is sworn in for a second term as mayor of Carrboro
Town clerk Sarah C. Williamson administered the oath to Mayor-elect Kinnaird and to aldermen-elect Hilliard Caldwell and Tom Gurganus after the board approved the abstract of votes from the November 7, 1989 election. Jacquelyn Gist was sworn in as an alderman at the same meeting.
- 1990s
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Carrboro's LGBTQ municipal firsts
From the 1990 equal employment policy and the 1994 domestic partnership ordinance, through Mike Nelson's mayoralty and Lydia Lavelle's, to the 2021 nondiscrimination ordinance: the town acts that made Carrboro a series of firsts.
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Carrboro adds sexual orientation to its equal employment opportunity policy
The Board of Aldermen unanimously amended the town's personnel ordinance to add sexual orientation to the characteristics protected in its merit principle and equal employment opportunity policy. On November 13, 1990 the Board had written a sexual orientation nondiscrimination clause into a planning grant agreement with the City of Durham and asked for the code amendment to be scheduled.
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Mark Chilton is elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council at 21
Chilton, then a UNC undergraduate, won a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council in 1991 at the age of 21 and served until 1997. He took a geography degree from UNC in 1993 and a law degree from North Carolina Central University in 1997.
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UNC's basketball team takes the court in Alexander Julian's argyle uniforms
At Dean Smith's request, the Chapel Hill native Alexander Julian redesigned the Tar Heel men's basketball uniforms, adding an argyle side panel that debuted in the 1991-92 season and became a symbol of the university.
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Daniel Pollitt retires from the UNC law faculty
Pollitt, by then a Kenan professor of law, retired from teaching in 1992 after more than 35 years at UNC. The Daily Tar Heel credited him with founding the North Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, opposing the Speaker Ban and helping to integrate the university.
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Orange County jury finds three former UNC officials discriminated against police officer Keith Edwards
A jury ruled that former UNC officials John DeVitto, Charles Mauer and Robert Sherman had discriminated by race and gender against Keith Edwards, an 18-year veteran of the UNC police, and ordered them to pay $116,000 in damages. Alan McSurely, her lawyer, won his first jury trial with the case.
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Hillsborough builds a new police station on North Churton Street
The Hillsborough Police Department moves into a new two-story brick building at 127 North Churton Street in 1995; it was going up during the 1994 survey.
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Ellie Kinnaird is elected to the North Carolina Senate
Kinnaird left the Carrboro mayor's office for the state Senate, where she sat from 1997 until 2013 representing a district that included Orange County. She had earned a law degree from North Carolina Central University while serving as mayor.
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The 1920s Orange County Jail on Court Street is greatly enlarged
The Neoclassical Orange County Jail at 125-131 Court Street, built in 1926 facing the courthouse with the deputy's apartment upstairs, is enlarged in 1996 with a series of flat-roofed wings reaching back to East Margaret Lane.
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UNC Housekeepers’ settlement is reached
UNC administrators and leaders of the UNC Housekeepers Association signed a mediated agreement on November 26, 1996, meant to end the housekeepers' 5 1/2-year-old discrimination suit. Housekeepers had approved it 212 to 1; it included back pay for about 340 workers, a career training program and regular meetings with administrators.
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Former UNC police officer C. E. Swain sues the university
Alan McSurely filed suit for C. E. Swain, a fired UNC police officer, alleging discrimination and violation of his constitutional rights; Swain said he came under pressure after ticketing the daughter of trustee Billy Armfield. The two asked the Black Student Movement for support the next day.
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Administrative law judge recommends state recognition of the Occaneechi Band
After a contested case hearing that ran from February 1997 to July 1998, an administrative law judge recommended that the Commission of Indian Affairs grant the Occaneechi Band tribal recognition.
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Commission of Indian Affairs rejects the judge's recommendation and denies Occaneechi recognition
At a June 11, 1999 hearing the Commission of Indian Affairs voted against the administrative law judge's recommendation, and on July 11 it issued a Final Agency Decision denying the petition. The band appealed to Orange County Superior Court on August 16, 1999, which affirmed the denial.
- 2000s
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Mark Kleinschmidt serves on the Chapel Hill Town Council
Kleinschmidt was elected to the Chapel Hill Town Council in 2001 and served until 2009. He was executive director of the Fair Trial Initiative and a former board president of the state ACLU affiliate.
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UNC's School of Law founds the Center for Civil Rights with Julius Chambers as its first director
The UNC School of Law established the Center for Civil Rights in Chapel Hill in 2001, with Julius Chambers as its first director, Dean Gene Nichol, and John Charles Boger as deputy director. The center worked on inequalities facing minority and low-income communities.
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NC Court of Appeals rules the Occaneechi recognition recommendation stands
The Court of Appeals reversed the Orange County Superior Court and held that because the Commission of Indian Affairs missed its statutory deadline, the administrative law judge's recommendation for recognition became the final agency decision by operation of law. It remanded the case for an order consistent with that holding.
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A police substation with community services opens in Fairview
In 2002 a police substation, shared with other community programs, opened on Rainey Street.
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North Carolina recognizes the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation
Following the 2001 appeals ruling, the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation became the eighth tribe officially recognized by the State of North Carolina through the Commission of Indian Affairs.
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Mark Chilton serves on the Carrboro Board of Aldermen
Chilton moved to Carrboro and sat on the Board of Aldermen from 2003 to 2005, the seat from which he ran for mayor. He was working as an attorney and a broker and living in downtown Carrboro.
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Orange County votes to extend health benefits to domestic partners
At a November 20, 2003, work session, the Orange County commissioners voted unanimously to extend employee health benefits to domestic partners. The county's insurance trust could not add them for January 2004, so the county budgeted the cost in 2004 and coverage for partners of county employees began January 1, 2005.
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Charles E. Daye receives the Thomas Jefferson Award
Law professor Charles E. Daye won the Thomas Jefferson Award in 2004, the year after he co-authored a brief that helped persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to preserve affirmative action in college and university admissions.
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Carrboro aldermen bar police arrests based solely on civil immigration violations
The Carrboro Board of Aldermen unanimously adopted Resolution No. 123/2005-06, making it police policy not to arrest or take into custody anyone solely because they have or may have committed a civil immigration violation. The board had asked the town attorney to research the question on April 18, 2006.
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Beverly Scarlett is sworn in as a district court judge for Orange and Chatham counties
Appointed by Governor Mike Easley on January 19, 2007, Scarlett was sworn in to a new District 15B seat added for the growing caseload. She was Orange County's first African American district court judge.
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David Caldwell retires as a sheriff's lieutenant to organize in Rogers Road full time
Caldwell joined the sheriff's department in 1985 after returning to the area and retired as a lieutenant in 2008 to work full time on community and social justice work. He became project director and community organizer for the Rogers-Eubanks Neighborhood Association.
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Eve Carson, UNC’s Student Body President, is killed
Eve Marie Carson, 22, UNC's student body president and a Morehead-Cain Scholar from Athens, Georgia, was abducted from her Chapel Hill home early on March 5, 2008, robbed and shot on Hillcrest Road near campus. Demario Atwater pleaded guilty in 2010, and a Hillsborough jury convicted Laurence Lovette on December 20, 2011.
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Sheriff Pendergrass defends Orange County's enrollment in Secure Communities
At a county commissioners' meeting, Sheriff Lindy Pendergrass explained his decision to enroll the Orange County jail in the federal Secure Communities pilot, which checks the fingerprints of people booked into jail against federal databases including immigration records. Commissioners, who had resolved in 2007 not to join the 287(g) program, raised concerns but took no action.
- 2010s
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Walter Horton becomes Carrboro's first African American police chief
Town Manager David Andrews named Captain Walter Horton, a Carrboro native who joined the department in 1993, to succeed retiring Chief Carolyn Hutchison. Horton led the department until he retired in early 2021.
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Eric Van Loon presents his Carolina Story to the alumni association board
The General Alumni Association published Van Loon’s My Carolina Story, given as a member of its board of directors. In it he recounts chairing the Carolina Political Union and signing the Speaker Ban lawsuit as one of a dozen students who were plaintiffs.
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Same-sex couples begin receiving marriage licenses in Orange County
A federal judge struck down North Carolina's ban on same-sex marriage late on Friday, October 10, 2014, by which time the Orange County Register of Deeds office in Hillsborough had closed for the day. The office issued its first licences to same-sex couples when it reopened on Monday, October 13, with Carrboro mayor Lydia Lavelle and Alicia Stemper first in line; the two married at the Carrboro Town Commons on October 25, 2014.
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Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha are killed in Chapel Hill
On February 10, 2015, neighbor Craig Hicks shot and killed Deah Barakat, 23, his wife Yusor Abu-Salha, 21, and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, 19, in the couple's Chapel Hill condominium. Hicks pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree murder in June 2019 and received three consecutive life sentences without parole.
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About 2,000 people hold a vigil in UNC's Pit for Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha
The day after the three were killed, an estimated 2,000 people gathered at the Pit on the UNC campus. Speakers included Imam Abdullah Antepli of Duke, Deah's brother Farris Barakat, Chancellors Carol L. Folt and Randy Woodson, and Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt.
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Carrboro Board of Aldermen calls for the repeal of House Bill 2 at a Saturday special meeting
Three days after the General Assembly passed and Governor Pat McCrory signed House Bill 2, the Board met in special session and adopted a resolution affirming the dignity of LGBT people, calling for the law's repeal and urging other North Carolina governments to use it as a model, then adopted a second resolution condemning by name the legislators and governor who enacted it. Both passed six to none with Jacquelyn Gist absent, and the Board asked staff to raise the town's rainbow pride flags on March 28.
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Mark Kleinschmidt is elected Orange County clerk of superior court
Kleinschmidt was first elected clerk of superior court in 2018 and has held the office since. The state judicial branch says that in the post he has worked to strengthen court services and the administration of guardianship matters.
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The Smith Center floor is dedicated as Roy Williams Court
UNC announced on August 2, 2018 that it would name the Dean E. Smith Center playing floor for Williams, and the floor was dedicated on August 24.
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The UNC Board of Governors gives Chapel Hill until November 15 to propose a 'lawful and lasting' plan for the monument
Eight days after the toppling, the Board of Governors met for nearly two hours in closed session and adopted a resolution directing Chancellor Folt and the trustees to present by November 15 a plan offering 'a lawful and lasting path that protects public safety, preserves the monument and its history'. Thom Goolsby cast the lone no vote, and the board ordered an outside review of the University's handling of the August 20 protest. The trustees met the same day.
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UNC trustees vote to house the monument in a new $5.3 million University History and Education Center
At a special meeting the Board of Trustees approved a four-part plan for the Board of Governors: relocate the statue and tablets into a new free-standing building at the former Odum Village site on south campus, add a McCorkle Place gateway with plaques, and continue contextualizing campus history. The center was priced at $5.3 million with $800,000 a year to operate; Folt said police advised that the statue could not safely return to McCorkle Place.
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The UNC System gives Silent Sam to the Sons of Confederate Veterans with a $2.5 million trust in a same-day consent judgment
The North Carolina Division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans sued the UNC System and Board of Governors over the monument and a consent judgment was entered the same day in Orange County Superior Court. The System handed over the statue, to be kept outside the fourteen counties with a System campus, and endowed a $2.5 million charitable trust from non-state funds for its care and display. Board chair Randy Ramsey said the deal let the University 'move forward'.
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The Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition collects soil at the site of Manly McCauley's lynching
On a Saturday morning on Carl Drive, McCauley family members, clergy and coalition members gathered at the spot where he is believed to have been hanged; elders of Hickory Grove Missionary Baptist Church blessed soil that was jarred for the family. A program with the Equal Justice Initiative followed at the church.
- 2020s
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Judge Allen Baddour voids the Silent Sam settlement in Hillsborough for lack of standing
At a hearing in Hillsborough, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour ruled that the Sons of Confederate Veterans had no standing to bring the suit and set aside the consent judgment and the $2.5 million trust. Five UNC students and a faculty member represented by the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law had sought to intervene; their motion was denied but the judge took up the standing question they raised.
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UNC School of Law dedicates a portrait of Charles E. Daye
The law school held a virtual dedication for a commissioned portrait of Professor Emeritus Charles E. Daye by the Durham artist William Paul Thomas, attended by close to 300 people. The portrait hangs on the fifth floor of Van Hecke-Wettach Hall.
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Family and community march to remember James Cates on the 50th anniversary
A candlelit march went from Hargraves Community Center to St. Joseph CME Church and down Franklin Street to Peace and Justice Plaza, where the Town of Chapel Hill invited residents to leave flowers and messages for the Cates family. Mayor Pam Hemminger pledged to work with the family and UNC to investigate the killing.
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Carrboro Town Council adopts a nondiscrimination ordinance covering sexual orientation and gender identity
Six weeks after the state's moratorium on local employment and public accommodation ordinances expired on December 1, 2020, the Council unanimously adopted Ordinance No. 10/20-21, adding to Chapter 8 of the Town Code a ban on discrimination in employment and places of public accommodation that covers sexual orientation and gender identity or expression. The ordinance took effect on adoption and cited the town's March 26, 2016 pledge to seek such protections.
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Hillsborough renames Thomas Ruffin Street as Lydia Lane
The Board of Commissioners voted unanimously to rename the street for Lydia, the enslaved woman shot by John Mann in the case Thomas Ruffin decided. All twelve households on the street had petitioned for a new name and had first proposed Hope Lane; Commissioner Mark Bell suggested using Lydia's name, and Commissioner Kathleen Ferguson made the motion to approve.
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Governor Cooper appoints Joal Broun a district court judge for Orange and Chatham counties
Broun was appointed to the District 15B seat vacated by Judge Beverly Scarlett. She was then director of the lobbying compliance division at the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State.
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Joal Broun is sworn in as a district court judge
Secretary of State Elaine Marshall administered the oath to Broun, who left her post as the department's lobbying compliance division director and gave up her school board seat to take the judgeship.
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Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board honors Stanley Vickers and his family on the 60th anniversary of his court victory
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools board passed a resolution recognizing the Vickers family's work to integrate the schools. Vickers, then in his 70s, attended and recalled eating lunch and going to gym alone as one of the first Black students at the junior high.
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Justice Department opens a cold-case investigation into the Cates killing
The U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the killing under the Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act and its cold-case initiative for racially motivated killings before 1980. Cates's cousins Nate Davis and Valerie Foushee welcomed the review.
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Journey of Reconciliation convictions are vacated
On June 17, 2022, Orange County Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour vacated the disorderly conduct convictions of Bayard Rustin, Igal Roodenko, Andrew Johnson and Joseph Felmet. The four Journey of Reconciliation riders had been arrested in Chapel Hill in April 1947 for refusing to leave the front of an interstate bus.
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Soil collection ceremony at the Orange County courthouse honors Cyrus Guy and four other 1869 lynching victims
The Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition held a soil collection ceremony for Washington Morrow, Wright Malone, Daniel Morrow, Thomas Jefferson Morrow and Cyrus Guy, all lynched in 1869. One jar for each man was to go to the Equal Justice Initiative's memorial collection in Montgomery, Alabama, and a second jar was to stay in Orange County.
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Zijie Yan, a UNC professor, is killed on campus
On August 28, 2023, Zijie Yan, an associate professor, was shot and killed in UNC's Caudill Labs, and the campus locked down for about three hours. Graduate student Tailei Qi was arrested that afternoon and charged with first-degree murder; the case had not come to trial by March 2026.
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Carrboro unveils a marker honoring Manly McCauley
On February 18, 2024, the Town of Carrboro, the Orange County Community Remembrance Coalition and the Equal Justice Initiative unveiled a historical marker beside Carrboro Town Hall for Manly McCauley. McCauley, an 18-year-old Black farmhand, was lynched by a white mob in 1898 near Hatch Road and Old Greensboro Road, west of Carrboro.
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Chapel Hill breaks ground on the Trinity Court redevelopment
Trinity Court, 40 public housing units built in 1975 and vacated in 2018 for structural problems, is being rebuilt with Community Housing Partners as 54 affordable apartments after an April 2022 rezoning and an October 2022 tax credit award. Leasing began in winter 2026.
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Student groups hold a memorial for James Cates in the Pit
The Southern Student Action Coalition, the Black Student Movement, the Community Justice, Abolition and Anti-Racism Collective and the UNC NAACP held a memorial at the Pit, where speakers criticized the wording and placement of the 2022 plaque.
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Penny Rich runs for Orange County register of deeds
Rich, by then an assistant clerk of superior court, entered the 2026 Democratic primary for Orange County register of deeds. She campaigned on modernizing the office's technology and public website and on heir property issues affecting African American families.
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Orange County's clerk of superior court is honored for work in guardianship law
Kleinschmidt received the Isabella Award at the National Probate Judges Conference for his contributions to guardianship and probate law. The award is named for judge Isabella Horton Grant and goes to people whose leadership improves guardianship laws, court administration and practice.
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Compiled and maintained by the Friends of the Orange County Public Library from county records, the sources named on each card, and the index’s event pages. Last updated October 2, 2026.
